Word: komikado
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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...high-tech companies in central Japan. "Most of the money goes to improving an existing product, not to basic research." Even when an inventor comes up with a hot product, the country's strong ethic of subordination of individuals to groups holds sway. Take the case of Aki Komikado, an unassuming sales-and-marketing employee who invented the Tamagotchi digital pet in 1996. The toy craze earned her employer, Bandai, $350 million, but Komikado didn't get a pay raise or a big bonus, and it doesn't seem to bother her. "Why should I get lots of money?" says...
...Komikado's loyalty to her co-workers is admirable, but the group mentality often discourages the risk taking needed to support experimental products. In the mid-1980s, Fujio Masuoka, a senior manager at Toshiba, created flash memory, a powerful chip that enables laptops to function without cumbersome disc drives. "American chipmakers are going to have to copy our design or risk losing the market," crowed Masuoka. Instead, Toshiba balked at mass production. Eventually, Intel swooped in and within a few years held 85% of the multibillion-dollar market...
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